穆罕默德·达维什诗7首

Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered “internal refugees” or “present-absent aliens.” Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.

In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a “resistance poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.

Mahmoud Darwish’s early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that “as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul.” Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: “Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception.”

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye commented on the poems in Unfortunately It Was Paradise: “[T]he style here is quintessential Darwish—lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant—and never anything less than free—what he would dream for all his people.”

Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.

The Cypress Broke

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

The cypress is the tree’s grief and not

the tree, and it has no shadow because it is

the tree’s shadow

 —Bassam Hajjar

The cypress broke like a minaret, and slept on

the road upon its chapped shadow, dark, green,

as it has always been. No one got hurt. The vehicles

sped over its branches. The dust blew

into the windshields ... / The cypress broke, but

the pigeon in a neighboring house didn’t change

its public nest. And two migrant birds hovered above

the hem of the place, and exchanged some symbols.

And a woman said to her neighbor: Say, did you see a storm?

She said: No, and no bulldozer either ... / And the cypress

broke. And those passing by the wreckage said:

Maybe it got bored with being neglected, or it grew old

with the days, it is long like a giraffe, and little

in meaning like a dust broom, and couldn’t shade two lovers.

And a boy said: I used to draw it perfectly,

its figure was easy to draw. And a girl said: The sky today

is incomplete because the cypress broke.

And a young man said: But the sky today is complete

because the cypress broke. And I said

to myself: Neither mystery nor clarity,

the cypress broke, and that is all

there is to it: the cypress broke!

If I Were Another

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!

If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!

If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier—

that’s what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another!

No More and No Less

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

I am a woman. No more and no less

I live my life as it is

thread by thread

and I spin my wool to wear, not

to complete Homer’s story, or his sun.

And I see what I see

as it is, in its shape,

though I stare every once

in a while in its shade

to sense the pulse of defeat,

and I write tomorrow

on yesterday’s sheets: there’s no sound

other than echo.

I love the necessary vagueness in

what a night traveler says to the absence

of birds over the slopes of speech

and above the roofs of villages

I am a woman, no more and no less

The almond blossom sends me flying

in March, from my balcony,

in longing for what the faraway says:

“Touch me and I’ll bring my horses to the water springs.”

I cry for no clear reason, and I love you

as you are, not as a strut

nor in vain

and from my shoulders a morning rises onto you

and falls into you, when I embrace you, a night.

But I am neither one nor the other

no, I am not a sun or a moon

I am a woman, no more and no less

So be the Qyss of longing,

if you wish. As for me

I like to be loved as I am

not as a color photo

in the paper, or as an idea

composed in a poem amid the stags …

I hear Laila’s faraway scream

from the bedroom: Do not leave me

a prisoner of rhyme in the tribal nights

do not leave me to them as news …

I am a woman, no more and no less

I am who I am, as

you are who you are: you live in me

and I live in you, to and for you

I love the necessary clarity of our mutual puzzle

I am yours when I overflow the night

but I am not a land

or a journey

I am a woman, no more and no less

And I tire

from the moon’s feminine cycle

and my guitar falls ill

string

by string

I am a woman,

no more

and no less!

The Horse Fell Off the Poem

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

The horse fell off the poem

and the Galilean women were wet

with butterflies and dew,

dancing above chrysanthemum

The two absent ones: you and I

you and I are the two absent ones

A pair of white doves

chatting on the branches of a holm oak

No love, but I love ancient

love poems that guard

the sick moon from smoke

I attack and retreat, like the violin in quatrains

I get far from my time when I am near

the topography of place ...

There is no margin in modern language left

to celebrate what we love,

because all that will be ... was

The horse fell bloodied

with my poem

and I fell bloodied

with the horse’s blood ...

I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

I have a seat in the abandoned theater

in Beirut. I might forget, and I might recall

the final act without longing ... not because of anything

other than that the play was not written

skillfully ...

Chaos

as in the war days of those in despair, and an autobiography

of the spectators’ impulse. The actors were tearing up their scripts

and searching for the author among us, we the witnesses

sitting in our seats

I tell my neighbor the artist: Don’t draw your weapon,

and wait, unless you’re the author!

—No

Then he asks me: And you are you the author?

—No

So we sit scared. I say: Be a neutral

hero to escape from an obvious fate

He says: No hero dies revered in the second

scene. I will wait for the rest. Maybe I would

revise one of the acts. And maybe I would mend

what the iron has done to my brothers

So I say: It is you then?

He responds: You and I are two masked authors and two masked

witnesses

I say: How is this my concern? I’m a spectator

He says: No spectators at chasm’s door ... and no

one is neutral here. And you must choose

your part in the end

So I say: I’m missing the beginning, what’s the beginning?

In Her Absence I Created Her Image

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

In her absence I created her image: out of the earthly

the hidden heavenly commences. I am here weighing

the expanse with the Jahili odes ... and absence

is the guide, it is the guide. For each rhyme a tent

is pitched. And for each thing blowing in the wind

a rhyme. Absence teaches me its lesson: If it weren’t

for the mirage you wouldn’t have been steadfast ...

Then in the emptiness, I disassembled a letter from one

of the ancient alphabets, and I leaned on absence. So who am I

after the visitation? A bird, or a passerby amid the symbols

and the memory vendors? As if I were an antique piece,

as if I were a ghost sneaking in from Yabous, telling myself:

Let’s go to the seven hills. Then I placed

my mask on a stone, and walked as the sleepless

walk, led by my dream. And from one moon

to another I leapt. There is enough of unconsciousness

to liberate things from their history. And there

is enough of history to liberate unconsciousness

from its ascension. Take me to our early

years—my first girlfriend says. Leave

the windows open for the house sparrow to enter

your dream—I say ... then I awaken, and no city is in

the city. No “here” except “there.” And no there

but here. If it weren’t for the mirage

I wouldn’t have walked to the seven hills ...

if it weren’t for the mirage!

In Jerusalem

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory

to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing

the history of the holy ... ascending to heaven

and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love

and peace are holy and are coming to town.

I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How

do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?

Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?

I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see

no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.

All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly

then I become another. Transfigured. Words

sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger

mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t be safe.”

I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white

biblical rose. And my hands like two doves

on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.

I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,

transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?

I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I

think to myself: Alone, the prophet Muhammad

spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”

Then what? A woman soldier shouted:

Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?

I said: You killed me ... and I forgot, like you, to die.

To Our Land

BY MAHMOUD DARWISH

TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH

To our land,

and it is the one near the word of god,

a ceiling of clouds

To our land,

and it is the one far from the adjectives of nouns,

the map of absence

To our land,

and it is the one tiny as a sesame seed,

a heavenly horizon ... and a hidden chasm

To our land,

and it is the one poor as a grouse’s wings,

holy books ... and an identity wound

To our land,

and it is the one surrounded with torn hills,

the ambush of a new past

To our land, and it is a prize of war,

the freedom to die from longing and burning

and our land, in its bloodied night,

is a jewel that glimmers for the far upon the far

and illuminates what’s outside it ...

As for us, inside,

we suffocate more!

语言的核心问题是意义问题，即：意义是什么？意义是如何产生的？我们从第二个问题开始。这不仅是因为对于诗人们而言，首要的问题往往是怎样表达而不是表达什么，更重要的是因为他们对第一个问题很少有过明确的回答，他们逃避着意义的确定性，而更愿意让人们自己去猜想。 

索绪尔之后，人们一般认为，词语中意义的生成主要依赖于能指和所指、词与物之间靠习惯形成的约定和我们对之的无条件遵守。而象征主义者们的主张是：意义的产生主要是靠语言使用者的主观心理因素，它包括两点：感官的错乱和想象力。 

他们的一个基本观点是，认为人的认知有赖于感官与感官、感官和事物之间的神秘感应。其发端是波德莱尔的“应和论”（又译“感应论”，“交感论”，“契合论”）。根据这种理论，在“颜色、声音和香味之间有一种类比性和隐秘的融合”。它的两个推论是：一方面，在事物和感官感受之间存在着一种契合和感应；另一方面，人的各种感官之间能相互对应和转换，也就是通常所说的通感。有人把前者称为垂直感应，而把后者称为水平感应。 

“应和论”大大地解放了我们感官的感受力。它要求我们，在学会如何使用词语之前，应该首先成为兰波所说“通灵人”，即“必须使各种感觉经历长期的、广泛的、有意识的错位”。这种努力有时导致某种堕落：波德莱尔有时靠鸦片来使感官的注意力更集中，感觉更强烈；从而能听到“音响像音乐，色彩在说话，香气述说着观念的世界”。但更多是自觉的探索，瓦雷里将此作为“研究受语言支配的整个感觉领域”。不过，感觉还只是语言的起点，再强烈深沉的感受也不等于意义的产生，理解和言说还要求想象力的参予。 

波德莱尔把想象力称为所有能力的王后，是它“告诉人颜色、轮廓、声音、香味所具有的精神上的含义”。这种“构造性想象”的作用才是决定性的。“整个可见的宇宙不过是个形象和符号的仓库，想象力给予它们位置和相应的价值”。这让人想到了康德的先天直观：可以认为想象力是人们在对事物的最初感受时就进行的某种整合和创造。“它在世界之初创造了比喻和隐喻”，而后又分解了这种创造，然后用积累和整理的材料，按照“人只有在自己灵魂深处才能找到的规律”重新组织，“创造出一个新世界，产生出对于新鲜事物的感觉”。意义产生了——对于新世界和新鲜事物的认识，这是他们对意义的一种常见提法。在此，意义似乎不是被传达出来的，而是被创造出来的。这种创造使语言变成了兰波所说的“真正的炼金术，一种对于这个世界的成分所进行的升华与纯化”。 

如果认为词语只是手段的话，那么“普遍的想象力包容着对一切手段的理解和获得这些手段的愿望”。在创造的“愿望”的支配下，主观想象力每每发挥到极致，于是意义的创造便可以脱离外界事物，也就是说，脱离对具体事物的感官感受，这时意义反而可能更加完满和准确。这种脱离使得词语成为隐语。兰波的炼金术又进了一步，在马拉美和瓦雷里看来，语言中最好“只能有隐语存在”。马拉美说：“能揭示在成熟和本色状态中的容貌、大海和雄伟建筑的美与效力的不是描写，而是诱发，暗指（allusion）和暗示（suggestion）”。这时，意义又成了梦幻或某种精神状态。“对事物观察时，意象从事物所引起的梦幻中振翼而起”，言说者要“一点一滴地去复活一件东西，从而展示出一种精神状态”。 

概括地说，无论是新鲜事物还是梦幻，诗人的意义都是一种可能的意义，不具有确定性和确实性。这正是“象征主义”的由来。 

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